


Settling Into Your Arms

by drygin



Series: Birchcaster [1]
Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: "I should have left you on that street corner where you were standing...", "bUT 'cHA dIDN'T", F/F, First Meetings, This whole fic reminds me of that one vine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24944257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drygin/pseuds/drygin
Summary: Late one auspicious night while trying to drown the still-fresh memories of her traumatic childhood at Golden Square with gin, Nancy meets a woman dressed handsomely in the colours of a man's navy uniform at a tavern. Out of curiosity, and against her better judgement, she decides to strike up conversation.
Relationships: Nancy Birch/Bonny Lancaster
Series: Birchcaster [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805314
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Settling Into Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Side-note: This is a mini prequel to "The Cure for Loneliness", set about ten years before the events of season one in the show, detailing how Nancy and Bonny meet for the first time. Enjoy!

During the first night the navy man begins reciting his poetry, Nancy can’t help but listen. Looking over the rim of her tankard, she watches the table across from hers in the tavern, the sound of women’s laughter snagging her attention. Save for her birch, leant against the empty chair next to her, she is alone. The streets outside are smothered in pitch-black darkness, silent as the grave apart from the odd squabbling row or set of footsteps from those slogging home to their own beds.

The two women at the table near her own are both enamoured with the conversation of a sailor, having found themselves drawn to his table from a lack of company. Seeing as their choices for companionship had been between the handsome uniformed figure scratching words with a pencil into the pages of a journal or the gaunt-faced dominatrix glowering in the corner, they had obviously chosen the former.

Nancy herself had come to the bar to wash away the fear-laden shadows looming at the corners of her mind that always chased her at this time of night, or at least soften their edges with gin so when she staggered home in the early hours of the morning and fell into bed, she would be enveloped in a dreamless sleep.

A headache the next morning is much more preferable to the alternative — waking abruptly after a snatched hour of sleep or two drenched in sweat, her heart thundering sporadically behind her ribs. Panicked and afraid of every shadow in the corner, left to pace the house until exhaustion dragged her back to sleep. So far, she had found two methods effective at preventing her nightmares of locked bedroom doors in Golden Square: gin, or not sleeping at all.

Usually, her remedy for such night terrors is Margaret, but she has been keeping her visits to the Wells’ house — where Margaret shelters with Will and her daughters — brief. As of late, her closest friend’s time has been swept up by the strains of motherhood and business. Margaret’s eldest daughter Charlotte has reached the talkative age of ten, the young girl possessing an arsenal of questions about the ways of the world to pester her Ma and Pa with, while a pint-sized Lucy has just begun learning to read.

Between schooling her daughters and running her house as one of the newest emerging bawds in Soho, Margaret constantly dwindles between falling asleep on the spot and tearing out the throats of one of the few working girls she keeps under her employ each time Nancy goes to see her, and so Nancy has made it a priority to avoid bothering the family.

Sidling up to the sailor, the two ladies guffaw at what Nancy imagines are overly exaggerated stories of the lands he had encountered throughout the world while seafaring, tugging coyly at the brass buttons of his dark-blue and gold frock coat while whispering sweet praises of bravery that leave Nancy fighting the urge to gag on her drink.

After downing several cups, the navy man seems to become comfortable enough in the presence of his audience, after brushing aside several coaxing pleas, to share some of what he’s been writing. The ladies at the table lean in, quietening to listen as he starts to read aloud a passage. It’s in that moment Nancy is surprised to realise the navy man’s voice, although husky, is startlingly _female._

Her brow furrows as she tries to process this. She can’t imagine how the woman has managed to find herself amongst the ranks of navy men, but she has to admit she feels childishly curious if not impressed. Nancy had seen women sailors working on ships before — a rarity, and an exhausting lifestyle in itself — but never dressed in a navy uniform, flaunting a man’s weapon at their hip.

Now, she understands why the company of such an oddity is so appealing to the other women, embarrassed about not realising the sailor’s true sex sooner.

In fairness, all Nancy had to go on with regarding the sailor’s appearance was what she could see from her table on the back of the woman’s head: short choppy black hair (cut haphazardly like the woman has taken a pair of scissors to it in a rage) and a tricorne hat, hardly the features of a woman.

Nancy glances down at her own bodice, flecked with droplets of blood and sweat from the men she had birched earlier that day, cocking her head to one side with a frown. She supposes she isn’t one to follow the rules of ‘womanly decorum' either.

“Tell us another, please!” one lady clinging to the sailor’s arm implores, interrupting Nancy’s train of thought.

“Alright, one more,” the navy woman agrees. “I'll pay for the next drink of whoever guesses what this one's about, how about that?”

The offer is met with the collective agreement of both ladies at the table. The navy woman flicks to another page, and Nancy scowls in disinterest, reaching out to take a hold of her birch and leave the tavern when the fervour which the navy woman speaks the first line of her poem with sparks her interest. She swallows another mouthful of her drink, craning her neck to hear the rest of it being said.

The navy woman’s voice lures Nancy into a drowsy sense of being half-awake until she's leaning her chin against a fist to keep her head from nodding forwards, gasping sharply under her breath each time she catches herself about to fall asleep. Stifling a yawn, she traces the swirls and indents on the table with her thumb, listening until the poem finishes.

“Well, that one’s obviously about love,” one of the ladies at the navy woman’s table pipes up.

“I’m afraid you’re not quite on the mark,” the navy woman replies, slipping her journal into the pocket of her coat. A gust of wind from the nearby window causes both ladies to tremble, the cold seeming to rouse them to their senses.

“I think I’ve heard enough poetry for one night,” one of them sighs. “Give us something to remember you by before we go, will you?”

Both women stand up from their chairs, and Nancy watches from her shadowy corner of the tavern as the navy woman tilts her head back, smirking slyly and reaching out to twine her fingers with the ladies’ hands. She presses a kiss to each woman’s cheek, sinking back into her chair with a dizzily contented sigh while the two of them breeze out of the tavern, engulfed by the darkness in the streets.

Once they have left, the navy woman chuckles to herself, straightening the lapels of her frock coat. “Is brooding in shadows and eavesdropping on other people’s conversations a passion of yours?” she calls out from her table, turning her head to face Nancy. “Or is it just a hobby?”

The navy woman’s eyes are a lustrous brown as deep as her olive skin, chasing Nancy’s hands and the bleeding skin around her fingernails as she pushes herself away from the table and bends downs to retrieve her birch. She strides past the navy woman’s table, but then stops and slides a finger past the dusty surface.

She doesn’t have the pluck to meet the navy woman’s eyes, but straightens her shoulders to draw up what she lacks in height, trying to ignore how ratty her clothes look compared to the striking colours of the navy woman’s uniform. Her clothes are ridden with holes, eaten through by the rats and other vermin that had invaded her house over the winter.

“It’s about shame, not love. Your poem,” Nancy clarifies.

A silence hangs in the air, one that she begins to fear until the sound of wood screeching against the floor breaks it. She flinches sharply, glaring down at the chair the navy woman has kicked out with a booted foot. “I suppose I owe you a drink then,” she says, nodding Nancy towards it. “Who is it I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

“Nancy.” They shake hands, and Nancy sits down at the table. “Nancy Birch.”

“Nancy,” the navy woman repeats with a grin. “What a disastrous coupling. I’m Bonny. What can I get for you?”

“The truth,” Nancy answers. “Of how you got that uniform, and where you came from. Start from the beginning, that shouldn’t be hard for you. Seems you love to talk about yourself.”

Smirking, Bonny pauses, leaning back in her chair. “My mother, bless her tender soul, was an infertile creature, but she was stubborn as an ox and determined to have children, so she ordered my father to stand her on her bedroom vanity with both legs up –”

“Not that far back!” Nancy snaps.

A laugh bursts out of Bonny’s throat. “Let me make the story simple, then,” she says, picking up the tankard on the table for a quick sip. “I was a stowaway on board a navy vessel and worked my fingers to the bone to earn my crew’s respect until they because so used to my presence, they were forced to call me one of their own. And then all of them died. We were attacked by raiders, you see. One moment I was defending the ship, and the next…” She snaps her fingers in the air. “ _Nothing._ I was rescued off a piece of driftwood by the captain of another ship — Captain Marius — and I’ve served as his Quartermaster ever since.”

“That’s quite a tale, if it’s true. Why are you in London?” Nancy asks.

“Our ship is harboured in a small town near the coast called Eddings. I’m here with my Captain to collect some supplies, but I’m in desperate need of a guide. Just today, I’ve found myself walking into enough dead-end streets to give me a headache.” Bonny emphasises her point with a groan, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers before asking, “How long have you lived here?”

“All my life, and then some,” Nancy replies.

“So, you must know this place like the back of your hand,” the navy woman remarks. “Could I be bold enough to ask for your help?”

Nancy’s stomach knots in uncertainty. Fumbling for a response, she eyes the purse hanging off the navy woman’s belt, tucked safely next to the polished handle of her sword. “You’d have to pay me for my services.”

The navy woman nods. “Of course. How much do you charge?”

“What do you think I’m worth?” Nancy asks, biting her lip to curb her smirk of satisfaction at Bonny’s startled expression.

The navy woman’s mouth falls open, closes, and then opens again, and she sits back speechless for a second before grinning in amusement. “We both know that’s a trick question. I’d have to choose a higher sum, or else risk offending you. No, you have to decide for me,” she insists.

Nancy pauses to mull over this. Money hadn’t been as plentiful as she would have liked these past few months. The string of regulars she tests her birching arm on and relies on the coin of to pay for her food and the rent of her house has been ebbing thinner in these colder days. What’s enough for new clothes? A filling meal, or blankets for the rest of winter?

“Ten shillings,” she says outright.

The navy woman doesn’t flinch, much to Nancy’s surprise. “Done,” she says.

“An hour,” Nancy presses hastily.

At that, Bonny cringes. She rises from her chair, fingers deftly buttoning her frock coat to prepare to face the bracing cold outside. “Tomorrow morning, find Captain Marius at the inn up the road and ask after me. He won’t be hard to spot — look for the man with a uniform like mine and the reddest hair you’ve ever seen,” she tells Nancy, and then adds before taking her leave, “If he doubts you know me, tell him you’re the lovely dame who _robbed_ me.”


End file.
